Wild hare hair
August 19, 2005 ~ 11:04 am
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The new haircut…and brows.
Note that my hair has already decided “Woohoo! I can go crazy now because I’m free of the weight! Left side and right side don’t have to match! Viva la return of curls!” Or something like that. But it’s short, it’s cooler, and overall, I’m happy. Although I’m still debating my decision not to have bangs. Took forever for the fuckers to grow out, so I guess I’ll stay bang-less a while longer while I make my decision.
I would like to have a discussion with my hair about its insistence on producing white hairs, though. I shouldn’t bitch, I only have had two, but dammit, I’m only 27! I don’t need white hairs! (And yes, I pulled them. And the one I named after Rick when I discovered it, because I’m sure he caused it, clung tenaciously to my scalp and refused to let go. It was stubborn just like its namesake.)
Oh, and the hair would like to point out that yes, that is a Kerry/Edwards bumper sticker to the right of the picture. The hair still denies that Asshat is President and would like it to be known that it took part in voting for someone else. Someone who wouldn’t be taking a five-week vacation when most people in this country can’t even take one week off from their jobs. That is all.
Auto pilot August 18, 2005 ~ 12:42 pm
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HAWT Joe, Wappinger’s Falls, July 3, 2005
I say this at least once every couple of weeks, but I’ve got nothing today. My life is just kind of going along on autopilot at the moment. The chaos of rehearsals doesn’t start until next week, my boyfriend is in week 4 of his exile in Massachusetts, and I have finally reached the bottom of my desk at work. It’s interesting to see the patterns the dust formed in around the piles of paper that were here all summer.
I’m experimenting with Blogger on Word today, because we all know your office can’t kick your ass if you’re on Word, while they may take umbrage at Blogger. We’ll see how this goes.
Lori came out to my house last night just to hang, which was nice. If you don’t live in New York City, this might not seem like a big deal. However, Manhattanites view a trip to Brooklyn as something akin to going to the moon. Going on the train, for chrissakes to a place where you can’t get the local deli to deliver beer and where there aren’t 8 billion restaurants on every corner is frightening for them. Think how traumatic it was on Sex and the City when Miranda moved to Brooklyn. That wasn’t an exaggeration, all Manhattanites are like that. My boyfriend shares the Brooklyn-phobia, although he’s getting better about it.
The students from the local beauty school are on campus today, working to get in their clinic hours by cutting hair for free. I will take them up on it, just so I can get rid of this tangled mop of hair that is now past my shoulders. I’m sick of it, it needs to go. As does some of my weight gain from a long summer of beer and chips and other munchies. Fall clothing is coming out soon, I want to be able to buy without thinking “These damn pants are too tight!†every time I wear them.
And this is quite possibly the most boring post ever to be on this blog. First time readers, I apologize. But it’s time for a haircut.
Six degrees of Michael A… August 17, 2005 ~ 12:09 pm
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Wappinger’s Falls, July 3, 2005.
Actually, Michael A.’s last name does rhyme with “Bacon,” but we all know I don’t do last names on this blog because then people could find my ass and that would be bad. Shame, it would have looked better. Anyway…
I had another shining example last night of how New York really is the world’s biggest small town. I went to a meeting with a playwright and a director to discuss a show that we’re going to start rehearsing next week. The playwright I knew from the company I work with, but I didn’t know the director from Adam. Or so I thought before I went into the meeting.
I took one look at her and said “You look very familiar,” and she said “You do, too.” We dismissed it as “Everyone starts looking familiar sooner or later” until she asked where I worked. I told her, and she said “Oh, I hear they have a good directing program.” I replied, “Yeah, they do. I got my dramaturgy degree from there.” And then the wheels started turning.
“Do you know Michael A.?” she asked. “Yeah, we went to grad school together…” I answered. “Wait, you’re his friend Carole, aren’t you? Didn’t we cast you in a reading that we did?”
Mystery solved. She was indeed Michael’s friend Carole, and we had met on several occasions about five years ago. That would have been weird enough, but two weeks ago I got a call from another friend of mine telling me that she had just signed a lease to a new apartment, and hey, didn’t I know a Michael A.? He had just shown her the apartment (the only way to make money as a dramaturg in this city, it seems, is to sideline in real estate) she signed the lease on.
Now I always knew Michael knew everyone, but this is just getting ridiculous. Must be the universe telling me I should get in touch with Michael and go out for drinks. And maybe play a few rounds of “Six degrees” to see who else we have in common.
Girly stuff and rocket science August 16, 2005 ~ 11:29 am
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Wappinger’s Falls, NY - July 3, 2005
You know what’s funny? When your boyfriend calls you on your way to the office and says “You left your birth control pills here. Now, don’t panic, we can find a way for you to get these.” It hadn’t even occurred to me to panic, even though I knew he was leaving for Rochester before I got out of work. Long story short, I got the pills. But not until after we had had this conversation:
Rick: Well, if you have another package at home, you could just take those pills and when I come back on Sunday, you could get these ones.
Me: That’s an idea. How many pills are missing from that package?
Rick: What?
Me: How many pills are missing? Open it up and count them so I know which pill I would have to start on.
Rick: Oh. Okay, hold on, let me look. (much muttering, which would lead you to believe that reading a birth control dispenser entails rocket science) I never had to look at this girly stuff before…there are eight missing.
Me: Okay.
Rick: But I’ll just leave this pack outside for you to pick up, unless you don’t want to.
Me: (realizing that he really wants to be rid of the girly stuff) No, it’s okay, I’ll come get it.
At least I got a visit to the uptown version of Lush out of the trip.
New York 2012, my ass. August 13, 2005 ~ 10:46 pm
Posted by Julie in : Daily Grind , comments closedOn a day where the heat index was between 105*-110*, Lori and I indulged in one of New York’s lesser known summer sports - one that will never appear in the Olympics. The name of this sport is “Run between airconditioned shops, keeping close to the buildings as you go so you can catch any a/c that is leaking from open doorways as you go.” Or as I have just christened it, the Summer Shopper’s Sprint.
Why did we feel compelled to do this? I have absolutely no idea. I’ll blame it on our limited time this afternoon, and the fact that between us, we had seen everything that was playing at the movie theater. Most of the stores we went to were a waste of time. And when did Gap stop selling good bras? I want to know, because I need new bras, and there were no good bras to be found, dammit.
We did hit two jackpots, however. The Body Shoppe was having a sale on tea tree products, so I got toner (and Lori bought the entire tea tree line and spritzed me in the face with some Vitamin C something-or-other for good measure). And then we found the nirvana of all cosmetic/soap stores. Lush. Have you seen one of these places yet? We were in it for five minutes when we declared it our new favorite store. And here is the reason why I heart Lush: The Wiccy Magic Muscles Massage Bar. I have been having serious problems with my neck again (Lori made me scream like a little girl today when she rubbed some of it out), and this little Massage Bar provides relief. Something about the cinnamon leaf and peppermint oils in it, plus the little beans that serve as natural massagers really floats my boat. And it smells so good. I am also enamored with the Glitterbug Massage Bar, and will be buying that on my next trip when I have some more money. If you have one of these stores (New York has two, proving that we are indeed a great city), go, buy. You will be happy. I am; I keep going to the fridge to smell my Wiccy Magic Muscles.
I came home to find InjectaKitty was close to his regular demanding self, which gave me great joy. And since then, I have been watching the Little House on the Prairie marathon on the Hallmark Channel. I have but one comment: is it just me, or is it really fucked up that they ended the series by blowing up Walnut Grove?
Defective August 12, 2005 ~ 9:17 am
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Me and the scarf that will never die, pulling a Dooce.
My mom called me this morning to inform me of something she’d just heard on NPR on the way to work. The mysterious “they” have done a study and found out that red hair is caused by a defective gene. Apparently my hair was actually trying to be brown. According to the study, redheads are also supposed to have a higher pain tolerance, although my mother laughed at that in my case. She spent many of my childhood ailments calling me Sarah Bernhardt (not to be confused with Sandra Bernhard, although I still mix those two up sometimes).
As she was laughing, I said “Well, don’t you feel awful right now.”
“Not really,” she replied. “Why?”
“Because my whole childhood, you mocked my pain, and now it turns out that when I was whining about pain, I was probably experiencing pain that would have paralyzed a mere mortal.”
“Leave it to you to turn an argument on its ear like that,” she laughed.
“And all those times I whined that you were brushing my hair too hard, you were probably pulling it out by the little bloody roots! I wasn’t just whining about a few little tangles!”
She was howling, so I pulled out my trump card: “Hey, at least I was born defective, I didn’t spend years dyeing my hair in the pursuit of defectiveness! Better born defective than defective by choice!” (No offense, Sloth!)
At this point she was laughing so hard that I thought she was going to wreck the car, and she said “I’ll put that over my mantle!” I offered to cross stitch it onto a sampler for her. Where my initials would usually go, I’m going to put “D.G.” for Defective Girl.
Whaddaya know…in the space of one morning, I have found out that I am defective and found my new superhero alter-ego.
Time, it waits for no one. August 11, 2005 ~ 2:04 pm
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Just like someone has to clean up after the elephant, someone has to push the coral. 2005 Mermaid Parade.
Points if you can name the song I quoted above, although I think that only Vince has a shot at this one…
Jordana and I were talking on the phone last night, and both of us were finding it hard to believe that it’s mid-August already, although we’re longing for cooler temperatures. We discussed how summer seemed endless when we were kids, and the school year seemed to stretch into forever, but now everything seems to go so much quicker (and if anyone older than me says “It just gets worse” or “You’re getting old,” I will kick you). And I had a realization.
Time goes by much more quickly now not only because we are trapped in the daily grind of work and watching the hours pass until we can go home, watch more hours pass, go to sleep for a few hours and wake up to do it all again. It goes by quickly because of contracts. You heard me. Contracts. Like with your satellite company, your wireless company, and your DSL company. We now spend our lives willfully selling them to someone else. Someone offers you a new phone if you’ll commit to being with them for a year? Sure, no problem, it’s a camera phone, right? Someone wants a one-year commitment for a satellite company? Okay, it comes with TiVo! And hey, that DSL is $19.99 for the first three months if you’ll stick with it for a year - can’t pass a deal like that up, can you?
Some of our ancestors got to the New World by agreeing to indentured servitude for a seven year period, but at the end, they got a major deal: they got to start fresh in a new country with seemingly endless possibilities. All I’m getting is a camera phone that will be out of date long before my one-year commitment is up. Once in college, I signed up for a credit card just so I could get a bag of Skittles that they were offering as a promotional item. My ancestors would be sorely disappointed at how cheaply I sell my life. Maybe I need to rearrange my priorities. I mean, if I’m going to commit to something, I need something better out of the deal. Like a videophone and some Skittles, dammit.
And if I sell myself that short for one measly year, imagine how easily I would commit for a lifetime. Rick, want to be with me until we die? Get me one of those Airport Express things so I can have wireless internet in my house, throw in a movie with some popcorn, and you’ve got me, okay honey?
Lights out August 10, 2005 ~ 10:34 am
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Wappinger’s Falls, July 3, 2005
Ouch. I just got my Con-Ed bill. My first bill from them was an estimation of $40. Apparently that was a low estimation, because when they actually read the meter this month, it was $176. Say it with me now. Ouch. So, realistically, I’ve used $108 of electricity each month. Not too bad, but not great, either. I leave my a/c on during the really hot days (and there have been a bunch of them this summer) because I live on the top floor of an old house, and I am not letting my poor cats swelter. If I find the heat unbearable, and I can take clothes off, how do little kitties who are trapped in a fur coat and can’t sweat to cool off feel? That’s what I thought. We’ve only got one more month of the hot-hot weather though, so I guess we can stick it out. Although they might start getting confined to the back of the apartment so that only one airconditioner is running. They’ll probably destroy my bedroom because of it, but it might save on the electric bill.
I was full of blogging ideas in the shower this morning, but can I think of any of them right now? No. So I’ll just let this be a rant about Con-Ed for now.
Except…how could anyone have thought making another Deuce Bigelow movie was a good idea??? Rob Schneider does nothing for me, and I can’t think of a less funny SNL alum. Yet there he is, making more movies. Which are probably going to be seen by the people who thought the new Dukes of Hazzard movie was quality entertainment. And we wonder why this country is in a decline…
Weekend wrap-up August 9, 2005 ~ 10:06 am
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Lori will kill me if she sees I’ve posted this…all the more reason to!
This weekend, summed up in a few phrases: fireworks, fish n’ chip picnic on the beach, house cleaning, kitty blood glucose curve, shots shots shots, anniversary, dinner, love, happy, sex sex sex, now I am bored. There, that tell you anything?
Llama, llama, duck August 6, 2005 ~ 6:05 pm
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Mermaid a go-go ~ 2005 Coney Island Mermaid Parade
I’m taking a break from housecleaning to listen to stupid internet songs. Like this old chestnut, complete with Spongmonkeys. Bet yer ass that one is on my iPod now. Or this one, about llamas and ducks. Or this one, which has a nifty video featuring alcoholic flying monkeys. You can’t beat that with a stick!
Other than that, we aren’t doing much at the Triple J Ranch (Rick christened my apartment that, since Joe, Jesse, and I all have J names). We were supposed to be in the middle of a glucose curve for Jesse, so I could see how the insulin is doing, and how low his sugars get when it has reached its peak, but Jesse decided that no, we weren’t going to be doing that. Do you have any idea how annoying it is when you’ve almost got enough blood for the meter to read, and then the cat flicks his ear and there goes your nice little blood droplet? Almost as annoying as…oh, I don’t know, you give the cat a pill and he acts like he’s Linda Blair’s stunt double in The Exorcist. I think he does this every once in a while to prove that while I may technically own him, I am so not the boss of him.
I realized the other night when I was IMing with Aimee that tomorrow is Rick’s and my third anniversary. More amazing is the fact that he is actually going to be at home - the past two years he has been in Massachusetts ferrying the Youngest to day camp. This year, though, our anniversary falls on a Sunday, and since his Monday softball team is in the playoffs, he’s coming home for the night. So I get him all to myself. Happy anniversary, honey!
And now we go back to the housecleaning. Yech. Maybe another chorus of the “Llama, llama, duck” song before I go…
